9398 Notices of Books. 



take. During the cold weather the bustard frequently feeds and rests 

 during the day likewise, in wheat fields. When the grass and corn 

 are all cut, and the bare plains no longer afford food to the bustard, it 

 will be found along the banks of rivers where there is long grass mixed 

 with bushes, or the edges of large banks, or low jungle where there is 

 moderately high grass, or it wanders to some district where there is 

 more grass ; for though they do not migrate, yet bustards change their 

 ground much, according to the season and the supply of grasshoppers 

 and other insects. The hen birds, remarks the writer quoted above, 

 generally congregate together during the rains, are very timid, and 

 frequently, when a sportsman is pursuing a single one, she will attempt 

 to seek safety, fatally for herself, in some large bush, particularly if 

 the gunner turn aside his head, and affect not to see her at the mo- 

 ment of hiding. The cock birds, at this season, feed a mile or so 

 apart from the hens, and, stretching their magnificent white necks, 

 stride along most pompously. Besides grasshoppers, which may be 

 said to be their favourite food, the bustard will eat any other large 

 insect, more especially Mylabris, or blistering beetle, so abundant 

 during the rains ; the large Buprestis, Scarabei, caterpillars, &c., also 

 lizards, centipedes, small snakes, &c. Mr. Elliot found a quail's egg 

 entire in the stomach of one, and they will often swallow pebbles or 

 any glittering object that attracts them. I took several portions of a 

 brass ornament, the size of a No. 16 bullet, out of the stomach of one 

 bustard. In default of insect food it will eat fruit of various kinds, 

 especially the fruit of the byr [Zizyphus jiijuba) and caronda {Carissa 

 carandas), grain and other seeds and vegetable-shoots. The bustard 

 is polygamous, and at the breeding season, which varies greatly ac- 

 cording to the district, from October to March, the male struts about 

 on some eminence, puflSng out the feathers of his neck and throat, ex- 

 panding his tail and rufiling his wings, uttering now and then a low, 

 deep, moaning call, heard a great way off. The female lays one or 

 two eggs of a dark olive-green, blotched with dusky. I have killed 

 the young, half-grown, in March, near Saugor. The bustard has ano- 

 ther call, heard not unfrequently, conipared by some to a bark or a 

 bellow ; chiefly heard, however, when the bird is alarmed. This is 

 compared by the natives to the word * hook,' hence the name of 

 * hookna,' by which it is known to the villagers about Gwalior. When 

 raised it generally takes a long flight, sometimes three or four mile.s, 

 with a steady continued flapping of its wings, at no great height above 

 the ground, and I never found that it had any difficulty in rising, not 

 even requiring to run one step, as I have many times had occasion to 



